World RX postpones Norwegian round after government ban

The Norwegian round of the World Rallycross Championship at Hell has been postponed, with the Norwegian government pausing all sporting and cultural events until after June 15, as reported by Motorsport.com on Tuesday.

The Swedish round at Holjes, set to take place at the start of July, is also under review and could be moved to later in the year.

“Due to the decision by the Norwegian Minister of Sport and Culture to suspend all sporting events until June 15 in light of the global health concerns regarding COVID-19 (coronavirus), this year’s World RX of Norway, scheduled for June 13-14, has been postponed,” said a World RX statement about the Norwegian round.

“We are studying a viable alternative date for the event in conjunction with the local event organiser.”

Holjes boss Morgan Ostlund has been quoted in local Varmland media saying that cancelling the Swedish round completely is not an option, nor is it viable for the event to run behind closed doors.

“In our mind, there is no question of cancelling the competition, in the worst case we have to move it instead (to later in July or August), and in the worst case to September.”

Ostlund says that his team needs at least two month’s notice as to whether the event can go ahead on its planned July 4-5 slot in the calendar, to allow for preparations to take place. There is currently a ban on public gatherings of more than 50 people in Sweden.

So far, the first four rounds of World RX have been postponed, with only the Belgian event at Spa officially being handed a new date.

It can be assumed that multi-purpose venues such as Spa, Barcelona-Catalunya and the Nurburgring have many other factors at play when trying to accommodate a revised schedule, while traditional rallycross-only venues such as Holjes, Hell, Loheac in France and Montalegre in Portugal are more flexible.